Eldritch Horror Theatre

The old man seemed to genuinely enjoy the breakfast atmosphere.

Jean set their food down and stepped away. After thanking her, Hake didn’t rush to eat; instead, he frowned slightly, gazing out the window.

The breakfast shop had a rather long and narrow layout, and this was the second-to-last table by the window.

It was obvious Hake hadn’t even had to think when choosing this spot.

The same order, the same seat, no words needed—it was certainly a common preference for male regulars.

But that didn’t mean his choices were random.

Although the windows were large, the very last table was clearly a bit too tucked away.

Even with the curtains fully drawn back, looking outside would still take effort.

And if they sat too close to the shop’s entrance, the morning sun would be completely blocked by the four-story concrete building outside.

Only their current spot avoided both problems.It also wasn’t dead center in the massive window, sparing them the discomfort of pedestrians staring as they passed by.

Appreciating his senior’s wisdom, Fu Qian followed the old man’s gaze.

The area’s zoning was rather chaotic. The concrete building was clearly some kind of factory, complete with a towering chimney standing beside it.

Separated from it by just a narrow road was a cluster of slightly shorter buildings.

Their more refined outer walls and variously styled balconies clearly marked them as residential.

Looking at the two, it was easy to see why the breakfast shop’s business was so poor.

The factory’s chimney wasn’t emitting any smoke, and even though it was well past eight o’clock, many of the curtains in the residential buildings remained drawn.

Through the open ones, it wasn’t hard to see from this distance that the rooms inside were almost as empty as the place he was staying.

There were even several patches of red and green graffiti along the lower edges of those elegant walls, which was exactly where Old Man Hake’s gaze had fallen.

This place was dying, just like him. A significant number of the former residents had moved away.

Of course, that didn’t mean Hake liked seeing this decay. In Fu Qian’s view, the old man was likely just enjoying a breakfast routine he had gone through a thousand times before.

Eating the same food, sitting in the same seat, looking at the same scenery—it allowed him to go through the motions of living while maximally detaching his sense of self from it.

As for why he felt that way—the old man’s frown wasn’t because of the graffiti.

A certain waitress skipping work seemed to have put him on high alert.

Yet even so, he hadn’t called Jean over to ask for details, faintly reluctant to ruin the breakfast routine.

Empathizing with him, Fu Qian didn’t push him either, despite being in a race against the clock. He simply shared in the feeling of this ordinary moment.

”They’ve never been here.”

However, Mister Hake’s mental enjoyment didn’t last long. He soon withdrew his gaze and abruptly offered a conclusion.

”Oh? What makes you say that?”

Readily accepting good advice, Fu Qian turned his attention back to his breakfast.

...

”They” undoubtedly referred to the missing young man and woman, or rather, the teenage boy and girl.

Fourteen years old. At that age, Teacher Yu hadn’t even been weaned yet.

”There are very few unfamiliar faces around here anymore. If there were any, Maggie would have told me right away.”

Mister Hake answered naturally, addressing the newcomer’s question.

And the Maggie he mentioned was easily deduced to be the female shop owner behind the counter.

It seemed that after all these years, the unspoken understanding between the two went far beyond just the menu.

”So, do you have a plan for our next step?”

Despite the slight suspicion of overconfidence, Fu Qian looked entirely convinced by this assessment.

”We eat first, and then we go visit Rachel and her husband.”

As it turned out, he actually did have a plan, even though the name Rachel—

”You think her missing work isn’t a normal absence? Is this kind of thing rare?”

Fu Qian naturally remembered that she was Jean’s colleague, and he didn’t mind that the old man seemed to be going off-topic.

Up until now, it seemed he could still maintain his previous judgment: this place was a rare, normal slice of the human world.

But sometimes, it was exactly the anomalies in ordinary life that brought a greater sense of pressure.

From Tina earlier to Rachel now, one could almost smell something unnatural in the air.

”On the contrary, it’s quite common... Rachel doesn’t exactly love her job.

”That’s also why, even though she’s quite popular with the men, I still prefer having Jean serve me.”

Hake’s response was once again unexpected.

”As for why I want to go take a look, it’s hard for me to even explain it to you with sound logic. If you manage to stick around for a long time... ten, maybe twenty years, perhaps one day you’ll be able to understand.

”It’s like you’re a spider, and the web is always moving, but there’s a specific twitch that just makes you know it wasn’t the wind.”

Saying so much in one breath seemed to drain his energy a bit. Hake exhaled, picked up the glass of milk in front of him, and took a sip.

It was even iced milk.

Looking at the condensation faintly forming on the outside of the glass, Fu Qian made no comment on the old man’s dietary preferences.

As for the spider web analogy, it actually wasn’t hard to understand.

For someone who could detach himself from life while eating breakfast, developing an invisible radar resembling a spider web wasn’t all that strange. Many people had similar experiences in their everyday lives.

A situation might look perfectly rational on the surface, yet one could still sense an incongruity within it—he was even feeling it right now.

The old man’s breakfast was very simple. Apart from the milk, it was just a pancake. Since he had copied the order, Fu Qian naturally had the same thing, except...

Fu Qian grabbed his own glass, feeling the denser layer of condensation on it.

It wasn’t that this glass was colder. On the contrary, it no longer felt like it had just been taken out of the fridge, which was exactly why the water droplets on it were so much more obvious.

So the question was, why?

Fu Qian wasn’t that picky about the temperature of his drinks, but thinking about it carefully, achieving this specific detail required a few special conditions.

First, this glass had been given to him, so it clearly hadn’t been prepared in advance for Hake’s tastes.

Yet it definitely had been prepared in advance, and there were no signs of it having been drunk from.

Ruling out the absurd possibility of ”we just opened but ran out of milk, so we had to give the customer a staff member’s drink,” who was this glass prepared for?

Not only that, it also had to satisfy the condition that Jean hadn’t noticed anything wrong with serving such a glass.

It felt like something Rachel would do. Looking at Jean’s radiant and energetic demeanor, it was hard to associate such sloppy work with her.

”I understand.”

Fu Qian’s gaze landed on Jean out by the counter, keeping up his conversation with Hake without missing a beat.

The waitress, who was chatting with Maggie, clearly noticed his stare. She turned her head and blinked.

”So, what color of flowers does Rachel like?”

However, Fu Qian’s next sentence caused her smile to freeze instantly.